At the 14th Annual North Carolina Workers’ Compensation Educational Conference in Raleigh, which is put on the by the Industrial Commission, Hank Patterson was presented with an award in recognition for his years of outstanding service to the workers and the workers’ compensation of system of North Carolina.  Mike Okun was called on to present the award to him.  Also honored was C. Woodrow Teague of the law firm Teague Campbell Dennis & Gorham.

Hank Speaks after Receiving Recognition

Categories: News of the Firm Tags: Hank Patterson, Industrial Commission, Michael Okun, Recognition, Workers' Compensation

The North Carolina Life & Health Insurance Guaranty Association is a state agency that, as one of its dutites, provides a guarantee for an annuity bought by North Carolina residents.  If the company that sells the annuity fails, then the Guaranty Association will take over paying the annuity up to a certain amount ($300,000 per person).  This is similar to the role of the FDIC in protecting bank deposits.

Injured people who reach settlements in workers’ compensation and personal injury cases often are provided with annuities (called structured settlement annuitities) to cover future expenses related to their case, such as future medical expenses.  Through a wrinkle in the law, many of these structured settlement annuities were not covered by the N.C. Guaranty Association.

Senate Bill 780 fixes this problem by expanded the coverage of the N.C. Guaranty Association to include structured settlement annuitities for North Carolina residents.  The Bill has just been passed by the Legislature and is on the way to the governor for her to sign.  Hank Patterson and Narendra Ghosh assisted with the legislative effort.

Categories: Legislative Action Tags: Hank Patterson, Legislation, Narendra Ghosh, NC Legislature, North Carolina, Personal Injuries, Structured Settlements, Workers' Compensation

Valerie Johnson spoke at the NCATL’s 2007 Workplace Torts and Workers Comp CLE, held in Chapel Hill.  Hank Patterson was also one of the program’s co-chairs.  Valerie’s presentation topic and paper was New Developments in the Interaction Between North Carolina State Employee Benefits and the Workers’ Compensation System.

Summary: Although the interaction between the state employee benefits system and the workers’ compensation system has some points of friction that have been the source of litigation, as a general rule, the two systems fit together fairly neatly. This paper provides a broad overview of the benefits available to state employees from the State and discusses how the receipt of workers’ compensation benefits would affect these benefits. Finally, it discusses how the careful structuring of settlements can mitigate or avoid offsets of workers’ compensation benefits against benefits from the State.

Categories: News of the Firm Tags: Articles, Hank Patterson, Presentation, State Benefits, Valerie Johnson, Workers' Compensation